Discussion (49) ¬

Andi’s done a LOT of growing up in a short time. I’m impressed. I wonder if she spent part of the day researching how to support Amanda through this, because she’s saying what Amanda needs to hear. And admitting this is also good for Andi’s own mental state. Baby steps, baby steps.

There’s a lot of times that adults tell you not to worry, or that it won’t hurt, and you learn not to trust them because they’ll never tell you when it WILL hurt, and so on.

That’s why I made it a habit to address most matters in a straightforward facts-as-I-understand-them manner when dealing with kids. (When I’m not deadpanning my ass off trying to see how far I can maintain a lie before they don’t believe me anymore. They’re past the stage of rabbits on the moon, Africanized killer coat hangers, and Wet Floor Sign Plants that’ll melt your shoes, but there are some newer areas they occasionally still fall for. Auntie’s privilege.)

The only areas I can figure that it makes sense to flat-out lie are in really big serious areas where either the truth will make them act the wrong way, or where knowing the truth would be bad for their psychological health. Like, you don’t burden a kill with all the horrible things that are going on in the world, even if they ask (you might explain a bit, but you soften it). And if there’s a legitimate reason to be careful (like a sexual predator moving into the area), you need to balance cautious behavior patterns with paranoia, because you don’t want to raise a kid to be terrified of strangers (most strangers are fine, and most kids who get deliberately harmed get hurt by people they know, not strangers).

Also, sometimes you need to push fear out of the equation because kids don’t yet know how to balance fear and action, or fear and reason. (Like, there are still kids who die because they saw a firefighter coming into their house to rescue them and thought it was a monster.) If, for example, there’s an imminent threat (gunman, collapsing house, likely explosion) and the kid needs to cross a specific area without getting paralyzed by fear, then you might try to convince them that there’s nothing to be afraid of they just need to run. That is an not entirely unreasonable choice of action.

Similarly, if an adult knows they’re going to die (e.g. trapped in collapsing building, or as a hostage) but the kid can still live, they might conceivably convince the kid to run by lying and saying that the kid needs to run and find help (even though there’s no time) or that mommy will be right behind them (even if she won’t). It might scar them psychologically, but they’d be alive.

Ah but were it not for mastering that fear and overcoming it’s hold upon you, were it not for focusing on the larger goals of attaining the cookies, you would never attain those chocolate chips at all, no?

I can imagine that Andi is in for a stern talking to, at least once she’s told her side of the story. Theo and Marigold are good at sitting down and talking things through first. If anyone is in for being yelled at and getting crap, it would be Andi’s mom.

THIS is a celebration of the lost Lamb returning to the fold.
Drawing and quarterings will occur at a date TBD/TBA when there will be sack-cloth and ashes, and crying and wailing and rending of cloths, and gnashing of teeth, tar, feathers, a rail, and bread and water for 30 days. Followed by Death by Haranguing.

Andi’s kinda bad at adulting, but really good at handling children. Or specifically Amanda, at least.

The key is to address Amanda as an equal, not condescend to her, not try to push her as an authority as much as possible. Let her feel like she’s in control of the situation, like she makes her own choices and understands what’s going on.

For someone who didn’t know about diapers several weeks ago, Andi sure looks like a natural.

(Maybe she’s just going with “Do the exact opposite of what my mom would have done”, that’s precise enough)

Looking at the similarities between upset Amanda in panel two and upset Andi in panel four, I don’t know how even Team Anti-Andi can’t feel even a little sympathy for her. She’s really trying, she’s being honest with the people she’s hurt, she is trying to make amends.

For example, my mother didn’t want me to move out when I became an adult. So she told me that the car that had both our names on it had only /her/ name and that, if I took it to move out, she’d have me arrested, effectively making it so I couldn’t leave because I’d have no way to and from work and wouldn’t be able to support myself.

Three years later, I find out the car had my name on it the whole time. That’s just one example of a bunch of hurtful things my mother did. And now that I’ve cut her out of my life, she’s desperately trying to apologize, even though I’ve tried to talk to her several times about how she’s hurt me.

I should note that this is my personal reason for disliking Andi. I can’t speak for anyone else out there who is Anti-Andi, but I’m betting her actions and the pain she’s caused resonate with a few people.

I’m sorry, but if I admit to feeling any sympathy for Andi I won’t be let back into the Anti-Andi clubhouse and we were going to have the coolest cookie sale thursday so I’m not gonna.

Snide generalizations aside, I — and I suspect most of those of us you blithely label “anti-Andi” — don’t actually hate Andi, or even fail to sympathize with her. She was pressured into making a horrible mistake eight years ago and she’s had to live with that for a long time.

This does not change the fact that when it finally came out into the open she handled the confession to Todd pretty much as badly as it was *possible* to mishandle, and then permanently destroyed any degree of trust when she made the suggestion that they could somehow “start over”. Even if it had been possible, that *wasn’t the place or the time*.

And then, because she’s an *idiot* about adulthood, she went and tried a *second time* before he walked away.

I’m not anti-Andi. I’m pro-Todd-staying-far-away-from-the-idiot-drama. There is a *distinct* difference, and your insinuations that everyone who thinks Andi needs a quadruple does of grow-the-fuck-up is just doing so because hating Andi is the cool thing to do is more than a little insulting.

Yeah, she’s terrified. She’s got good reasons for it — which is an improvement over being terrified for stupid reasons, which likely describes the mental state she was in when she gave Amanda up eight years ago. I’m not without sympathy for her; I just prioritise Todd and Selkie’s emotional well being higher than hers or Amanda’s, and remain unconvinced that the latter two are compatible with the former.

My reason for disliking Andi is I think she’s a pathetic person that needs to get her act together. I’ve seen many people in real life like her. Manipulative little liars that no matter why they’re doing it, they’re being manipulative little liars. She didn’t have to keep the lie going as long as she did, yes she would have lost him, but she was out from under her mother’s thumb she could have come clean but didn’t because she was being selfish.

No matter how you want to look at her, her behavior was in fact very cruel and nasty and no matter the reason she made her choice, and a person must pay the consequences for her choices. This was 8 years, 2, 3 years I might have given her, but 8 YEARS! No, she doesn’t get any sympathy from me. Because after that long, she pretty much eroded any points where she might deserve it. Not everyone should get your sympathy. My sympathy is with Amanda where it belongs. If she was to cry at the drop of a hat I would be there with a hanky and a pat on the back. That’s a little girl who has known nothing but pain and agony, it would be understandable. Not so much with Andi, and when she cries looking for sympathy, I can’t help but roll my eyes and it’s because of Andi’s actions.

I want to know what she’s done to deserve sympathy. That she’s had a horrible childhood? We can’t really tell if she has. She might have had a decent, if domineering childhood, and really, many people have bad childhoods and still make good decisions. Aside from that, she hasn’t done anything worthy of sympathy.

Tearfully explaining things? Yeah, she uses that card every chance she gets and even tried using it to get Todd back.

Get Amanda back? Geez, if she had been honest, this would never have been an issue.

She has not done anything really worth sympathy, she has never presented herself as worthy of it. Yes, I know, bad things happened that are out of her control. Except they were, and shit happens. She’s done a lot of damage in the past. I see no reason to excuse this because I feel bad for her, which I don’t.

I mean, … How does Todd hold Selkie close to him, and not alienate ‘Mandi? How does he embrace Amanda without striking fear into Selkie? This is a dangerous teeter-totter, I hope he’s good at balancing things. Maybe a certain “engaged to be married” sister can keep Selkie from ‘sploding? Dunno.

Fear is the cookie killer. Fear is the little death that denies me chocolate chips. I will face my fear. I will permit the cookies to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn my inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will only be cookies. And when I eat them, there will be nothing, and only I will remain.

It is by cookies alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the chips of chocolate that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning. It is by cookies alone I set my mind in motion.

It’s interesting how Andi slumps onto the floor. I like how she takes the opportunity to get on Amanda’s level and show vulnerability at the same time. I feel like that’s something Amanda needs a lot more of- to be reminded that other people are vulnerable, and that she is a person of equal value to the adults around her.